Posts Tagged ‘Koran’

The Koran dictates that 20 percent of the booty or spoils of war, known as khums, belongs to Allah and Muhammad. As Iraqi expatriate I.Q. al-Rassooli points out in this talk entitled “Allah’s Share of the Plunder,” does it really make sense that Allah needs a cut of the spoils? What’s the exact breakdown between Muhammad and Allah—10 percent for each? The only logical explanation is that Muhammad got it all. What kind of religion would devise such a system? As al-Rassooli points out, the kind of religion that attracted other men who believed that they too could become very wealthy from plundering and looting non-believers. This is about 5 minutes long:

Money Jihad has previously proposed methods to limit zakat and hawala—two major mechanisms for funding terror. Here’s a more comprehensive set of our recommendations that would reduce terrorist financing overall:

Drill, baby, drill. The U.S. should expand offshore oil drilling, open federal lands for drilling, ease its permitting process for new refineries, encourage hydraulicfracturing methods that tap previously inaccessible energy sources underground, and approve the Keystone XL pipeline. Increasing domestic U.S. and Western Hemisphereenergy production will reduce reliance on Persian Gulf oil supplies and thereby minimize the profitsreaped by hostile, foreign regimes that sponsor terror.

Eliminate foreign aid to Pakistan. Pakistan uses its ISI spy service to fund the Taliban, the Haqqani network, and Lashkar-e-Taiba. Continuing to waste money on Pakistan is not only wasteful when we can least afford it, but it is suicidal.

Study the true enemy and threat. Among the most important concepts for the Western public to understand are:

If we fail to acknowledge Islam as the animating force behind terror finance, we’ll get confused and aim at the wrong targets. For example, we’ve spent billions of dollars complying with extensive bureaucratic requirements such as currency reports that have yielded minimal results.

It’s never been clear who’s funding the recent, massive Koran giveaways in traditional non-Muslim countries such as Germany and Hong Kong, although religious ministries or charities from Islamic countries are the likeliest sponsors.

And if recent developments from Indonesia are any indication, one should also wonder how aboveboard the contracts between the Koran printers and the distributors have been. From Foreign Policy:

Before performing any deed, a good Muslim would say “In the name of Allah, most gracious and most merciful” — either to make sure that he or she is not committing an act of sin, or asking God to show mercy in case a sin is committed. But would a Muslim say that before stealing, too? The bad ones probably do.

The Muslim politicians and bureaucrats involved in the latest scandal over the procurement of a Quran, no doubt would have said bismillah (in the name of God). But while they may believe God will be merciful, don’t expect the public to be so forgiving.

In Indonesia, the country with the world’s largest Muslim population, you don’t go any lower than stealing in the name of God.

The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) has named Zulkarnaen Djabar, a Golkar Party member of the House of Representatives, and his son as suspects in the scandal. It’s possible, though, that the case may soon expand to include more suspects.

Zulkarnaen, a member of the House’s Budget Committee and Commission VIII (which deals with religious and social affairs), played an active role in pushing the House to approve hefty increases in the budget allocated for the government’s program to procure Qurans. Zulkarnaen had a personal interest in the project: His son, Dendi Prasetya, got the lucrative contract to supply Qurans to the Ministry of Religious Affairs.

Other Commission VIII members have since confessed that they each received over 500 copies of the Quran from the Ministry. None of them saw this as a kickback for securing the budget increases. Some claimed they were simply helping the Ministry to distribute Qurans (no doubt to appease voters before the 2014 elections).

Others claimed that the free, government-distributed Qurans would help promote moderation and tolerance in Islam as part of the campaign to fight radicalism. This claim has been refuted by an Islamic group that found that the government-issued Qurans carry translations that promote violence and radicalism.

At a cost of Rp 1 million ($106) each, these volumes of the Holy Book must be among the most expensive Qurans ever found in Indonesia.

Public reaction to the news has been largely muted — primarily because no one was really that surprised. It’s not the first time that God’s name has been corrupted. The Ministry of Religious Affairs has already earned a reputation as one of the most corrupt state institutions, according to a Corruption Eradication Survey conducted in 2011.

Rather than a fortress of morality, the Ministry of Religious Affairs has long since become a bastion of hypocrisy.

To many bureaucrats and politicians, God has become a commercial project, whether it’s procuring Qurans, or dispatching a huge Indonesian delegation to the haj pilgrimage in Mecca, the most lucrative of all government projects. Not surprisingly, the Ministry of Religious Affairs has jealously guarded this project in spite of repeated calls to leave it to an independent agency that would subject it to closer scrutiny to ensure better management.

Indonesia sends more than 200,000 pilgrims to Saudi Arabia each year, the largest contingent from any country. As far as business goes, this is a captive market over which the government holds a monopoly. The ministry rakes in huge profits from the project, and it now sits atop a $4 billion endowment.

The temptation is just too big…

There is more at this link, particularly about corruption in Indonesia’s hajj allowances.

Maysir means “gambling,” and it is prohibited by Islamic law. Muslims throughout the centuries have regarded maysir as any type of game of chance with money at stake.

In the time of Muhammad, however, it is possible that maysir simply referred to one particular game of dice, as described in Franz Rosenthal’s book Gambling in Islam. Nonetheless, Rosenthal says that no proof is available either way, and Muslims have been consistent in outlawing virtually any type of gambling.

The Koran, Sura 5, Verse 90 says, “O ye who believe! Strong drink and games of chance [maysir] and idols and divining arrows are only an infamy of Satan’s handiwork. Leave it aside in order that ye may succeed.”

The advocates of sharia law are so adamant on this point that they’re willing inflict severe injuries on those who gamble. See this recent news (h/t Atlas Shrugs) out of Aceh, Indonesia, where 11 were caned for gambling.

Would you look forward to living under Islamic law where a private bet over a sporting event or a game of cards subjects you to a public caning? Do you, like some in Washington, D.C., Paris, and London eagerly anticipate the ascension of “democratically” elected Muslim Brotherhood partisans in the wake of the Arab Spring who will impose penalties such as the ones Acehnese authorities have meted out against low-stakes gamblers?

The prohibition on maysir is based on irrational superstitions, petty whims, and ill-conceived utterances of a violent man 14 centuries ago.

But somebody paid for the Korans. The radical group handing out the Korans intends to distribute 25 million Islamic books in Germany in total.

Radical Muslims conduct mass Koran giveaway

Getty Images offered this caption for a separate photograph taken one of the Koran giveaway events:

BERLIN, GERMANY – APRIL 14: A member of the group ‘The True Religion’ shows a copy of free distributed Koran at Potsdamer Platz on April 14, 2012 in Berlin, Germany. Islamic radicals in Germany have launched an unprecedented nationwide campaign to distribute 25 million copies of the Koran, translated into the German language, with the goal of placing one Koran into every household in Germany, free of charge. The group, which calls itself ‘The True Religion’, claims that 300,000 copies have already been distributed. German officials have raised serious concerns about the initiative, calling it an abuse of the holy text. (Photo by Target Presse Agentur Gmbh/Getty Images)

The Koran, Sura 57 (“Iron”), Verse 11 says “Who is he that will lend a generous loan to God?” The verse continues by assuring that Allah will “double it” as repayment to the lender.

Several passages of the Koran parallel this verse. From a theological standpoint, it is curious that an all-powerful god would request a loan from the people he created. An outsider could wonder, as did some of the Jews in Arabia during the time of Muhammad, if “Allah is poor and we are rich.”

But Abu Bakr, Muhammad’s best friend and himself a rich man, did not like being confronted with the possibility of Allah’s state of financial dependence or the verse from the Koran which suggested it. Here’s the story of the Jewish rabbi Finhas, who resisted Abu Bakr’s appeals by saying:

“We have no need of Allah, but He has need of us! We do not beseech Him as He beseeches us. We are independent of Him, but He is not independent of us. If He were independent of us, He would not ask for our money as your master Muhammad does [for a war against Mecca]. He forbids usury to you, but pays us interest; if He were independent of us He would give us no interest.”

At this, Abu Bakr became angry, and struck Finhas violently, saying, ‘I swear by Him in whose hands my life rests that if there were no treaty between us I would have struck off your head, you enemy of Allah!’

Abu Bakr wished he could cut off Finhas’s head for pointing out the contents of the Koran and the contradictions of riba. Even assuming that the loan-to-Allah verse is a non-literal expression, we are still left with the contradiction that Allah will “double” the repayment of loans made to him, which sounds a lot like the riba (interest) or usury which is outlawed throughout most other texts of Islam.

Many Muslims now claim in public that the loan to Allah in Verse 11 is actually charity for the poor, but the preceding verse of the Koran suggests, as Finhas suspected, a more warlike purpose: “Those among you who contributed before the victory, and fought, shall be differently treated from certain others among you!” (Koran 57:10). Charity toward “victory”? Charity toward “fighting”? Charity toward “iron”? No—in context, the loan does not appear to be for charity for poor people, but financing the conquest of Mecca and the establishment of the Islamic state.

Rewards promised to those who give their money toward the military victory of Islam are frequent throughout the Koran.

Infaq means “spending.” Some people explain infaq as a third type of Islamic “charity” along with zakat and sadaqa, but strictly speaking it is not. “Infaq fi sabil Allah” is spending for the sake of Allah, which suggests spending for the purposes of jihad, dawah, and charity. S.M. Hasan-uz-Zaman explains:

Infāq literally means spending. It signifies any spending whether for good cause or bad. That is why spending by non-believers for opposing Islam, their spending on their wives, spending by hypocrites, spending by Muslims on their wives by way of dower and sustenance are all termed infāq. Infāq qualifies itself to become virtuous in case it is made for Allah’s pleasure. It should be done scrupulously without any desire for publicity.*

It is important to understand the concept of infaq by non-Muslims, because it explains part of the hostility of Muslims toward the Western “infidel” economic and financial system. The Koran declares that infaq by infidels is “like a freezing wind, which falleth upon and destroyeth the cornfields” (3:113 in J.M. Rodwell’s translation of the Koran, 3:117 elsewhere) and, “The infidels spend their riches with intent to turn men aside from the way of God: spend it they shall; then shall sighing be upon them, and then shall they be overcome. And infidels shall be gathered together into Hell” (8:36).

Supporters of sharia finance have their individual motives, and among them are those who seek not just to provide an alternative investment option to pious Muslims, but to supplant what they deem as an intrinsically untrustworthy, unholy system of Western finance as characterized by their Koran.